A Democratic-backed law that kept property taxes from decreasing survived its final legal challenge Monday as the Colorado Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that the 2007 measure violated the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in the state constitution.

In a 6-1 ruling, the court reversed a May 2008 district court ruling that said the law, which kept local mill-levy rates from going down and is expected to raise more than $100 million annually, violated TABOR’s requirement that voters approve any additional tax increases.

Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, who was a defendant in the suit, said the ruling would avert even deeper cuts in the state budget to education programs like full-day kindergarten and school counseling.

“The real winners today are Colorado’s children,” he said.

House Speaker Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, said he wasn’t surprised by the ruling.

“We knew this would pass constitutional muster or we wouldn’t have done it,” Carroll said.

Republicans, though, said the ruling adds to a piecemeal dismantling of the 1992 Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights which, among other things, limits government revenue and requires tax increases to be approved by voters.

“This is a full-scale assault on the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights,” said Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction. “There is an attempt to repeal TABOR on an installment plan.”

Republicans and other opponents of the law also hinted that there could be a move to mount an initiative petition allowing local voters to repeal the tax freezes.

Opponents of the law, which included the Mesa County Board of Commissioners, had argued voters were never asked to consider having their taxes not decrease, saying that violated TABOR.

But the court said voters in 174 of the state’s 178 school districts who had already voted to cast off limitations under TABOR — or “de-Bruce,” in reference to TABOR author Douglas Bruce — did not need to approve the mill-levy freeze law.

“Nothing in (TABOR) requires an additional vote,” the court’s opinion said. “Because there was no change in state revenues, a statewide election was not required.”

Ritter said the ruling, “reaffirmed that voters in every one of those districts knew what they were doing.”

The effect of the 2007 law was to boost local school funding. That allowed the state to use money it would have otherwise sent directly to school districts on other needs.

When Denver District Judge Christina Habas overturned the law last May, there was concern that the state’s share of education funding would dramatically increase and that massive taxpayer refunds might even be ordered. State analyses showed taxpayers paid $117 million last year as a result of the law, taxes that would have been avoided without the mill levy freeze.

Asked Monday if there was ever a plan to deal with that scenario, Ritter said little.

“We had a plan for going about the business of making cuts, but I’m going to say anything more about that,” he said.

Republicans said the ruling capped a string of partisan decisions by the court that have flouted TABOR, pointing to a decision last year that the state could drain money from cash funds and use them for other state needs without that violating TABOR as an example.

Five of the justices, all Democratic appointees, voted Monday to overturn the lower court ruling, while one of the two Republican appointees wrote a separate concurring decision. In a sharp dissent, Justice Allison Eid, the other Republican appointee, called the majority’s arguments “utterly unconvincing” and at one point complained of “the lengths to which the majority will go to ensure that no vote of the people ever be required.”

Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, a key foe of the mill levy freeze, said the next step will depend on whether school districts allow voters to opt out of the law. If that doesn’t happen, Caldara and others said, there could be a statewide initiative petition that would allow local voters an opt-out.

“The next move will be going from ‘de-Brucing'” said Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, “to ‘re-Brucing.'”

A key point in the Monday ruling was the court’s decree that the 2007 law did not amount to a “tax policy change” as defined under TABOR, something that would have required voter approval.

The court said the language couldn’t be applied so broadly that it would cover any change, no matter how small. In some cases, the court said, the cost of the election to get voter approval for the change might be more expensive than the policy change itself.

“We have consistently declined to adopt interpretations of (TABOR) that would unreasonably curtail the everyday functions of government,” justices said in the majority opinion.

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